High-Fidelity Modelling of an Electric Vehicle

The development and validation of a high-fidelity dynamics model of an electric vehicle is presented. The developed model is comprised of two subsystems: i) the vehicle dynamics model, and ii) the electrical powertrain subsystem consists of the alternating-current (AC) induction motor, the 3-phase pulse-width-modulation (PWM) inverter, and the motor controllers. At each stage of the development, the developed models are verified by studying their simulation results. Also, vehicle testing is performed using a reference electric vehicle and experimental powertrain data is measured from the vehicle’s electrical powertrain controller area network (CAN) bus. The experimental motor torque-speed curves are used to tune the AC electric motor model parameters. Once the individual components are developed and validated, the high-fidelity electric vehicle system model is created by assembling the MapleSim vehicle dynamics model and the electrical powertrain subsystem. The simulation results, such as the vehicle’s longitudinal speed and developed motor torque and currents, are presented and studied to verify that the electric vehicle system can operate under different driving scenarios. The high-fidelity electric vehicle model will be used in future work to test and validate new power management controllers.